Home » Tag: LBi Software

The Benefits of Custom Software Development

Packaged (off-the-shelf) software vs. a custom software solution — that is the question. Actually it’s not that simple a question anymore. Today there are many hybrid software alternatives, which start with a packaged solution that can be quickly modified to meet the customer’s exacting business requirements.

In the “old days” — remember PC DOS and mainframes — most business software was custom built from scratch due to the lack of availability of flexible industry-specific packaged systems. Yes there were some standard accounting systems, manufacturing systems, HR systems, etc., but in large part business software (particularly for large organizations) was written directly to customer requirements. Software was written in everything from low level machine code (0’s and 1’s), Assembly language, COBOL, BASIC and other “higher” languages. Many companies were rightfully wary of custom solutions due to the difficulty of debugging and supporting these systems, but often had no choice.

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How to Engage Your Remote Workforce

remote workforce

Many of today’s businesses have multiple sites around the country and around the world, and telecommuting employees are less uncommon than before. Technology designed to bring employees together despite their geography isn’t new; however, the growing trend towards employing remote staff members has organizations looking at this technology in a new way. Tools that were once too costly to share with employees working from home offices are now more affordable, making it easier to connect remote workers and increase their engagement, regardless of physical location. Employers have more options now than ever to bring their virtual workers closer to the business.

Creating Personal and Professional Relationships
One of the primary drivers of employee engagement is the personal and professional relationships between team members. Frequent communication and time spent face-to-face builds trust, making teams far more effective. However, remote employees find developing these relationships challenging, as their primary method of communication is through email and instant message. In fact, one study determined that a full 81 percent of virtual employees consider development of rapport and trust within a virtual team the number one work related concern.

Fortunately, travel is no longer required for face-to-face meetings. Video conferencing technology is now so economical that businesses can offer the option to all remote employees without incurring significant expenses. Staff members find they can fully participate in relationship building with colleagues through daily use of video conferencing applications, and they are comfortable with the technology because it is now an everyday form of communication between family and friends.

Adding a Personal Touch
Increased use of inexpensive video conferencing, instant messaging and other forms of communication are proven relationship builders, but they can’t entirely replace the personal touch. Consider organizing regular in-person meetings, first when the team is formed, and then at least once a year. Spending several days together gives virtual colleagues an opportunity to develop solid personal relationships through informal interactions, which facilitates effective collaboration through virtual channels later. Read More

The Risks and Rewards of Utilizing Offshore Technology Services

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment

The availability, skillset, and quality of Information Technology (IT) resources varies greatly from organization to organization. Regardless of company size, IT resources may be readily accessible when needed, or not. And frequently not. Whether HR has a large application development project to manage or merely needs a special one-off data analysis report, more often than not the IT backlog will dictate the timing of the project delivery date. And the nature of IT’s skills will determine the quality of work.

For more business and mission critical projects that simply cannot be delayed, HR must turn to outside vendors, which is generally the best decision anyway. Service providers that specialize in HR usually can deliver a more reliable, robust, scalable, and extensible solution, because that is their specific area of expertise. Not to mention on-time and on-budget delivery is now governed by a contract and not internal priorities. This becomes a cost savings as well when you add in the advantages of SaaS and cloud hosting.

After all, if your home air conditioning system breaks down, most people would call an HVAC technician over a handyman, right? You might pay a little more but the service will invariably be superior.

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Implementing Preventative Measures to Minimize Data Breaches

By | Data Security | Leave a comment

Much has been said (here and in many other articles) about cyber security risks, and the measures LBi Software and other companies are taking to prevent system data breaches. We talk about data encryption at rest, filed level encryption, VPN tunnels, malware/virus protection, intrusion detection services, two factor authentication, secure coding principles and more, but breaches can still happen.

More focus is needed on the most common reasons for breaches and what you, the client, can do to minimize them. Let’s face it; the chances of a hacker cracking the data encryption code that most databases use is roughly equivalent to winning the Powerball lottery. It could happen – after all we saw three lucky winners last week (though it took billions of tickets sold since the last jackpot winner) – but it just isn’t going to happen that way. That is why the Federal Government is currently pressing technology companies to assist in cracking encryption codes used by the bad guys in their communications with other bad guys. Even the Fed cannot crack those codes alone.

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To Purge or Not to Purge (HR Help Desk Data)

By | Compliance | Leave a comment
Purge data

One of the most frequent questions from LBi’s HR Help Desk clients is when to purge and archive older help desk records. Our answer is simple and straight forward — never. Each employee’s complete case history reveals a lot about that employee’s disposition in the company. Changes in productivity, temperament, company loyalty, and more can occur over periods ranging from weeks to months to years. LBi HR Help Desk captures that valuable information. Having that data live and available for analysis presents a tremendous benefit to HR management.

Since individual case records are very small in size (less than 10K plus attachments, if any), the help desk database for a 10,000 employee organization might not even break 3-5 Gigs after a full 5 years in production. Considering the standard LBi hosting configuration includes arrays of 300 Gig drives (and unlimited in the Cloud), that same company could easily store well in excess of 20+ years live data, with no loss of performance.

Often, our prospective clients express concern about data privacy, suggesting that aged records (let’s say case records >5 years old) are better (read safer and more secure) archived outside of the live system, and accessible strictly to limited users. LBi HR Help Desk can accommodate that request, but we ask why. Our hosted systems provide the highest level of data security possible, with layer after layer of security designed to manage the most confidential data. We are HIPAA and SSAE16 Type II certified, Safe Harbor certified, including multiple additional certifications and industry compliances. And user defined security levels provide our clients with the ability to restrict access to data based on your policies and rules.

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The Client / Vendor Business Relationship

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment

Currently I am reading Things That Matter, by conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer. It is a compilation of articles the author has published over the last few decades covering a wide variety of subjects of greatest importance to him, and in his humble opinion, topics that also impact the general public.

The topics range from the personal to the political to the existential. Subjects range from his view of Winston Churchill as the single most important person to humanity in the last 100 years, to how and why the American Kennel Club is attempting (albeit inadvertently) to dumb down the most intelligent of canines, the Border Collie.

This book got me thinking — what are the things that matter most to me? I will save that for my first book. However, I would like to opine on a particular subject near and dear to my heart — and hopefully yours — things that matter in vendor/client relationships. Even if you are not a business person, you cannot avoid daily vendor/client relationships. Think about the coffee you just bought at Starbucks or the gas station attendant that filled up your car.

Some relationships are one-time events but many are not. And in business, vendor relationships are often long term in nature. Whether the vendor is supporting your HRIS system or cleans your office, business relationships typically span a number of years. Knowing that in advance, why is it that occasionally either the vendor OR client will still attempt to take some unfair advantage of the other party – even though animosity can and often will create lasting tensions beginning early in the partnership, yes, partnership? Hidden costs or product misrepresentation are common vendor transgressions. Unpaid invoices and new “scope creep” demands are just a few client offenses.

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LBi HR HelpDesk Tips and Tricks – Extracting Data From Reports

HR HelpDesk Data Tools

All good Help Desk report writing tools offer multiple data sorting and filtering options, providing the user with the specific view they require for a specific report. But what if the resulting report presents some extraneous data, or possibly is missing desired data points that may not be included in that particular report template?

Novice and non-technical users generally are not provided access directly to the underlying database, and even if they were they wouldn’t know how to use it for customized reporting. Crystal and other popular report writers, often used as the reporting engine in business applications, try to provide a reasonably simple tool for creating or modifying reports, though these tools are far too complex for the average user.

And don’t bother contacting IT for assistance. Take a number and they will get back to you.

So, how would you like to run a report thinking “I don’t need these 2 fields, but I would like to add a different field; and create a different presentation of the report. And accomplish that in a few mouse clicks.” That would be nice, right? Read More

Is electronic communication reducing quality employee interaction?

We all know pervasive texting among young people has the potential to negatively impact their ability to communicate effectively as adults, right? Kids growing up using emojis, acronyms, short-hand, and plain old poor spelling to converse with their peers will certainly challenge their skills as they “mature”.  What happened to face to face interactions? Or even the basic phone call? After all, you are texting on a cell PHONE!

Sadly, traditional verbal skills are currently under assault thanks to advancements in technology. The more we don’t need to talk directly to each other, the less we will. Why not? Texting gets your point across faster — even with expressions of emotion (via those emojis and “lol”).

How about instant messaging (more used at work and less by the kids)? IM has all but replaced the ubiquitous phone call in many offices. And email? All the better to document in writing the details and nuances of an important conversation. That is certainly true, but rather than summarizing the contents of a call or meeting in a follow-up email, email is it — the gospel.

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Are Company Dress Codes Beneficial for Peak Performance?

Corporate Dress Code

A long time ago (ok, the early 1980’s) the typical dress code for technology sales professionals (my career path) was a 3-piece business suit (the “uniform”) for men (dark blue or gray preferred, plus power tie, please) and blue or black business suite for women. IBM was #1 and their culture set the trend for semi-formal workday dress.

Then a funny thing happened by the late 80’s and early 90’s; thanks to Microsoft, not only was casual dress acceptable, but it was almost required — logo shirts, khakis and all. Somewhere in-between these two distinct time-periods casual Friday was borne. During this “interim” period much debate was focused on the supposed benefits or potential detrimental impact of casual dress in the workplace.

Not coincidentally our presidents during these periods were conservatives Reagan-Bush (1980-1992) and liberal Clinton (1992-2000). You could compare the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between these two time-periods to determine if one period was more productive than the other (Average $11T annually during the Clinton years and $8.6T during Reagan-Bush), but frankly the GDP has increased steadily almost every year since 1933. So that wouldn’t be a fair statistic. Even when you compare the GDP per capita (I tried this as well), the numbers tell the same story.

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The Importance of Multi-Language Capability in HR Software

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
Multi-language

If your organization is multi-national, then you already understand the requirement for multi-language versions of business software. Whether the software application is employee-facing (i.e., HR Help Desk or Time & Attendance) or not, your multi-national workforce may necessitate the adoption of systems that provide multiple language versions.

However, even very small organizations can have the same or similar language issues. In the US today, there is tremendous growth in the Hispanic population, as well as steady immigration from Asian and Middle Eastern countries. The chances of SMBs having some predominately non-English speaking employees are very high. Proactive companies are providing English as a second language classes for their foreign-born employees, helping them assimilate into American culture.

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Five Powerful but Easy Microsoft Excel Tips for the Novice

Here are a few of my favorite, and often used, Excel features. These selected functions can greatly simplify daily Excel tasks. They are non-technical and easy to remember.

1. Naming ranges

Have you ever gotten lost trying to enter a complex formula, or understood whether it has even been written correctly? Which formula below would be easier to understand?:

  1. =SUM(A5:D5)*SUM(D7:F7)+SUM(Sheet2!C9:C14)
  2. =SUM(Quantity*Cost)+Overhead

The next time you need to reference a range of cells or an individual cell in a formula, just highlight that range or cell and click on the Name Range dropdown box (directly above Cell A1), and type in a descriptive name. Now, when you write the formula use the range name instead of the actual cell range.

Use this feature especially when others need to access and review your Excel sheet. Naming ranges will speed the review and auditing process.

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Determining the ROI on HR Business Systems – or Not

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment
HR Systems ROI

Return on Investment (aka ROI) implies at some future point you get your money back after the investment is made. There is an initial financial investment, and an eventual “return” of those dollars (and then some, hopefully) down the road.

Depending on the system being implemented, calculating your potential ROI can be simple math or a much more complex process. Are there truly hard-dollar quantifiable savings — elimination of paper records and storage, staffing cuts, etc? Or are the savings more in the soft-dollar category, such as time saved or greater employee satisfaction? Probably, with HR systems, it will be a combination of both.

 

Calculating the Total Cost of Ownership

First you have the task of attempting to accurately quantify the numbers. How much does all that paper actually cost? And did the staff cuts force new overtime pay for the remaining employees, cutting FTEs with little to no drop in overall payroll expense? Did employee satisfaction improvements result in measurable productivity gains and/or lower turnover? Can you even determine that?

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HR System Integration vs. Application Interfaces – A Tutorial

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment

Literally (not virtually) 100% of LBi HR Help Desk clients require connectivity to their internal HR system (or application), and often to other systems as well, such as Payroll, Talent Management, data analytics systems and others. These connections may range from real or near-real time, to hourly, daily, or even less frequently.

Connectivity (we will discuss integration vs. interface shortly) can be one directional or bidirectional, depending on the client requirements. Therefore, it is critical for HR to carefully plan which systems need to be connected, and to what level.

Vendors will primarily use the term “integration” generically when discussing data connectivity; but what is the difference between integration and interface? And why should you care? You should care because different connectivity methods require differing skill sets and timeframes. If your IT staff is short-handed you may run past deadlines and deployment goals, not to mention presenting ongoing support concerns.

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Using Your HR Help Desk to Predict (and Prevent) Employee Defection

prevent employee defection

Many corporate HR departments are enjoying the benefits of a robust HR Help Desk. Critical to HR is the ability to track every employee request or issue, while maintaining a comprehensive permanent record of each and every case. Equally critical is the means to provide consistent and accurate responses, and compliance with company SLA terms. HR Help Desk systems are designed specifically to provide those services and more.

Other systems, such as Talent Management applications, provide tools to ensure the smoothest recruiting, onboarding, training and development possible, as well as managing the full lifecycle of the employee’s tenure with the organization.

So what happens when the unthinkable occurs and an employee decides to leave? Especially a valued employee. While the wheels are already turning rapidly for the employees planned exit, unfortunately “rolling stones gather no moss”, as they say.

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Don’t Use Your IT Help Desk for HR

Don't Use Your IT Help Desk for HR

When seeking a new case management system for HR, many HR organizations opt for the easy decision of using the company’s existing IT Help Desk solution. Why not? It has similarities to an HR specific system. It has been used successfully by IT for years. It’s feature rich, lower cost, and possibly even no cost to expand the system into the HR department.

Then comes the painful reality of critical differences between IT focused systems and HR-centric systems. And as many people know, once a system is in place it will be very difficult to replace later. You will probably have to live with your selection for years to come.

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SaaS and the Cloud: They’re Different

SaaS and cloud computing are different and do not mean the same thing

Why are cloud computing and SaaS (Software as a Service) so often used interchangeably – incorrectly? Well, clearly, most assume a SaaS offering is in the cloud due to its inherent low cost. But that is not true; a SaaS application could reside on a fixed or virtual server. Likewise, cloud computing should not imply SaaS: any application, including single tenant apps, can be hosted in the cloud.

Vendors and service providers put their own spin on SaaS and the cloud to suit their needs, which makes it even more difficult to understand the differences.

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The Importance of Overseas Travel for College Students

By | Talent Management | Leave a comment

When I was in college way back in the 1970’s it was relatively uncommon for average students to travel abroad, whether privately or through school sponsored programs. Foreign travel came (if at all) after graduation and after enough money was saved for the special trip. Unless you were a foreign exchange student or majored in a subject that necessitated overseas study, there simply weren’t viable opportunities for expensive travel for most kids.

Today, in many colleges and universities, study-abroad programs are highly recommended, and in many cases mandatory for graduation. Even in majors such as fine arts, life sciences, pre-law and others, the best schools recognize the tremendous benefits students receive from direct exposure to other cultures. Most schools that offer these programs subsidize the study abroad costs over and above regular scholarships, grants and loans in order to make it as affordable as possible for students.

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HR Technology: Ensuring Privacy, Security, and Confidentiality

By | Data Security | Leave a comment

Regardless of what software and hosting they use, all HR leaders share one thing in common: They want to be sure their HR applications can deliver three mission-critical objectives — privacy, security, and confidentiality.

In HR case management, here’s how those three important objectives are defined and achieved:

  1. Confidentiality — Cases are accessible depending on their category or type of case and on rules set up by the organization. Confidentiality is meant to protect the case because of its assumed sensitivity or for legal reasons, and also to protect the identity of the employee and others involved. Examples include claims of sexual harassment, employee theft, and complaints about managers.
  2. Privacy — Cases are accessible only by authorized users based on the type of case and, largely, on the desires of the employee. For example, an employee may have a general HR question and want the response to be kept private. HR may not consider the topic one that demands confidentiality. LBi HR HelpDesk ensures privacy between the employee and HR by letting employees determine how they receive their responses during the handling of their case — email, in-person or directly by phone, for example.
  3. Security — Security is all about protecting data and information, and it’s delivered in various ways:
    • LBi HR HelpDesk Enterprise, for example, uses a single-tenant model with hosting on its dedicated server option including a dedicated hardware firewall. In our SaaS multi-tenant model (Pro and ProPlus) the data is stored in separate schemas divided by client so that “records are not co-mingled”.
    • Data is “encrypted at rest” to increase security. Data at rest is any data that’s not moving over a network or temporarily residing in computer memory to be read or updated (an HR case form that an employee has downloaded, for example). Encrypting data at rest requires password-based access if the server is ever unplugged and rebooted — or accessed by an unauthorized user.
    • Key PII (personal identifiable information) data fields such as Social Security Number or Bank Account info are further encrypted at the field level.
    • LBi HR HelpDesk Enterprise hosting offers “intrusion detection” at the server level that’s physically monitored around the clock.
    • The LBi HR HelpDesk application (and all our applications) are designed and developed using the secure coding principles from the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP).

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Faking it on LinkedIn

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

It is common knowledge that social media is a breeding ground for nefarious activities, conducted by all sorts of people with ill intentions. And much of this occurs on Facebook, considering it is the #1 worldwide social media site. Certainly preying on minors and cyber-bullying are two of the top offenses we read about almost daily.

But much less is written about the use of LinkedIn and other professional networks for dishonest, misleading and potentially criminal means. LinkedIn is the go-to social site for business professionals who want to expand their network of colleagues and contacts with similar interests, not to mention posting resumes in hopes of uncovering new and more lucrative job offers. So why would anyone wish to “intrude” on members who are simply seeking to interact with others strictly on a professional basis? And how do the scams work?

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Applying Sabermetrics to Any Business

Have you seen the movie Money Ball, starring Brad Pitt? The premise of the film was that one baseball team (Oakland A’s) made a decision to use advanced statistical analysis methods to best evaluate the capability for players to contribute to winning games. In 2002, the Oakland A’s had the third lowest team salary budget in the major leagues. Their only hope for success was to find undervalued players (read: low salary) that flew under the radar of other team scouts and managers.

Traditional player analysis previously focused primarily on very basic statistics like runs batted in (RBIs), home runs, batting average and stolen bases, as well as subjective judgements such as “he’s a hustler and a team leader”, “great player”, etc. Because that was always the way baseball teams evaluated players, it must be the best and only way, in their view. Even in this age of computer technology it is ironic that highly paid (and well regarded) scouts and managers still rely on simple statistics that were developed well before computers were even invented.

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Managing SLA Rules in Large, Global or Multi-regional Companies

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

One of the most important functions of the HR department is to respond to employee issues and requests in a timely manner. Certainly, different case types have different priorities. For instance, a manager dispute would always take precedence over a tuition reimbursement request.

But other factors may also weigh in on Service Level Agreement (SLA) policies. Multi-national or multi-regional organizations may have to contend with differing local laws and regulations. Companies with union employees may have different requirements for non-union employees, or even different unions. Not to mention hourly vs. salaried worker policies.

SLA tracking gets even more complicated when dealing with varying time zones. What does an 8 business hour response time mean to a worker in California when the corporate HR department is in New Jersey? Whose 8 hour day does the SLA refer to? In many cases, this can be cleared up by well written policy and procedure documents. However, it may not be that simple, again when dealing with the likes of unions and government regulations.

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Keeping Confidential HR Data Confidential

At LBi, virtually 100% of the systems we develop and support maintain at least some level of private and confidential employee information. Along with the essentials of Social Security Number, date of birth, home address, etc., our systems may also contain work background information, personal health information and other personally identifiable data as well. Therefore, it goes without saying that our clients require the highest level of data confidentiality possible, since a data breach can be costly and inconvenient at best and financially devastating at worst.

Whether our systems are hosted by LBi or deployed on the client’s internal servers, data protection and security is always the #1 concern. During the project stage, critical questions are asked about the vendor’s security measures as well as the data security processes of the hosting provider — not to mention confidentiality features built into the actual system.

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Summertime in HR

The lazy days of summer are finally here. Time for that long-deserved vacation from work and the daily grind. Whether you are a shop-floor worker, business manager, or a senior executive, summertime is the most popular time of year to “vacate”.

Though most businesses don’t shut down during the summer, business activity often slows down because clients, prospects, vendors, and partners are also heading for the beach, mountains, or wherever their desires take them.

So now is a great time for HR to kick back and enjoy the relaxed pace, right? Yes, but… there are still SLAs to honor, paychecks to get out on time, and other workplace issues to address. Additionally, many employee self-service HR applications are supported on mobile devices, so employees can now engage HR anytime, anywhere, with the expectation that HR is there for them when needed. With staffing levels likely lower during the summer season, HR still maintains the responsibility to support the employee population, whether they are on the job or on leave.

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Help Employees and the Company Thrive by Supporting Continuing Education

Encouraging employees to continue their education can increase your company’s profits, improve productivity and create more committed employees. Spending around $680 on education and training per employee returns an annual investment of around 6 percent, according to a study from the Association for Talent Development. Give your employees the tools they need to succeed by helping them choose the best options for their education. Here’s how to get started.

Create an employee action plan
Before talking with employees about their education goals, determine what type of support the company will offer. Consider implementing a tuition reimbursement program, paying for books or supporting specific degrees or areas of interest. Businesses that can’t afford a tuition reimbursement program but still want to support their employees’ education can offer a flexible schedule for classes and study time.

Next, sit down with your employees individually and figure out an education action plan that benefits both the company and them. Ask your employee to draft up a proposal of what type of courses or degrees would benefit their career and how they expect it to fold into their day-to-day responsibilities while helping them grow professionally. Create guidelines for how time away from work will be handled and whether employees must pay back fees if they stop taking classes.

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Determining HR Staff Requirements with HR Help Desk Statistics

hr analytics for staffing

 

Much has been written about finding the optimum ratio of HR staff to employee size. A SHRM Human Capital Benchmarking Study has published a suggested ratio based purely on employee count:

The formula to calculate the ratio would be:

(HR Staff Count / Employee Count) x 100

For instance, a 1500 employee company with 10 HR personnel would have a ratio of 0.67, somewhat below the supposed target staff according to the table above (10/1500 * 100 = .67). In theory, based on the chart, 12 HR personnel would be optimal to manage 1500 employees.

SHRM suggests that not all HR staff should be factored into the count. Generally it is recommended to only include HR professionals who work as generalists, and those in areas such as benefits, compensation, labor relations and organizational effectiveness. Payroll and other specialized roles should not be counted.

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Increase Productivity & Job Satisfaction with Employee Incentives

If your employees seem unmotivated, they might be in a slump. Only 30 percent of workers in America are actively engaged in their jobs, according to a recent Gallup survey. The decline in employee engagement reportedly began in 2008 during the Great Recession, when job security and unpredictability were at the forefront of concern and positive attitudes plummeted.

Today, human resources departments understand more than ever that rewards and recognition can play a key role in helping businesses increase productivity and create an overall happier workplace.

Reclaim your workforce by implementing an innovative rewards program that includes compensation, gifting, recognition, and perks. Here are a few ways to get started!

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Sierra-Cedar 2015-16 HR Systems Survey

Sierra-Cedar 2015-2016

How efficient is your HR organization? Is there room for improvement (there always is, right)? Just as importantly, how well run is your group compared to others in your industry, or in the market in general?

Whether or not you believe your HR organization is performing at peak efficiency levels, understanding how your peers are managing their firms, companies with the same issues and challenges you face, can only expose new and potentially productive ideas.

Since you are not likely to call on your competition to compare notes, how can you broaden your knowledge of industry trends and cutting edge business tools? The answer is in the HR industry’s most comprehensive annual survey, the Sierra–Cedar 2015–2016 HR Systems Survey, 18th Annual Edition.

In partnership with Sierra-Cedar, LBi invites you to participate. The survey is now available at www.Sierra-Cedar.com/hrssv45 until the deadline on June 30, 2015. All responses are confidential and only used in aggregate results.

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Leverage HR Case Management to Help Keep Your Best Employees

Leverage HR Case Management to Keep Best Employees

Keeping top talent has become an increasing concern for HR, and it’s a challenge that’s expected to get more difficult, according to SHRM and others. Yet all too often, it’s only after the fact — during the exit interview and maybe not even then — that managers learn why departing employees are disgruntled.

“The only time the average manager thinks about retention is when she or he receives a resignation from an employee,” say B. Lynn Ware and Bruce Fern in their research report “The Challenge of Retaining Top Talent: The Workforce Attrition Crisis.” “We also found that most managers predictably attempt to talk departing employees out of leaving, trying to convince them that they are making a mistake.”

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Prevent Identity Theft from Happening to Your Small Business

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

Identity theft isn’t just limited to individuals. Businesses are also targets. Identity thieves steal personal information and use it to open accounts and make purchases. Luckily, there are certain things you can do to keep your small business safe.

Regularly Review Your Business Banking Agreements
Business bank accounts fall under the UCC, which states that businesses have less time to report fraud and identity theft than consumers do. Businesses also have more liability when it comes to fraud. Because of this, it’s important that you review your banking agreements. The organization Business ID Theft says you should be aware of your bank’s policies, especially those regarding your business’s liability for fraud.

Develop a Defense Plan
The U.S. Small Business Administration advises small businesses to develop a defense plan to ensure your company’s identity is protected. By designing a detailed plan you can protect your business’s identity as well as put an action plan in place in case your business falls prey to identity theft.

Use Encryption
By encrypting your data you will minimize your chances of having your identity stolen. Employees or outsiders can steal this data. However, according to Lawrence R. Rogers, one of the senior members of the technical team of Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, encrypted data is similar to shredded paper. The thief may be able to tape all of the little pieces of paper together, but it takes so much time and so many resources the data itself will be useless by the time he is done. Read More

LBi HR HelpDesk: Delivering the Choices Our Customers Need

No business application can be all things to all people, but with the right team behind it, it can certainly come close. Rather than taking the “build it and they will come” strategy, successful software developers continually research their market and listen closely to what their customers and prospects are asking for.

You have spoken and LBi has listened. Whether your business is a 10 employee startup or a multinational conglomerate, LBi HR HelpDesk is the HR Case Management solution for you.

Designed explicitly for HR, and fully capable in virtually any industry, LBi’s HR HelpDesk covers every common client feature request. Some clients desire the convenience and low cost of a cloud-based solution. We delivered. Larger and more security minded organizations still insist on dedicated server hosting or on-premises deployments. We delivered. Multi-language needs?  How about 90 different language options via the new embedded Google Translate on-the-fly language translation service? We delivered.

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HR Help Desk vs. IT Help Desk – It’s all about the Vendor’s Experience

Much has been written (including by yours truly) about the benefits of an HR specific help desk solution for the HR department, versus repurposed IT or generic CRM systems. Features such as enhanced security and confidentiality, HR specific workflow processes, and HIPAA compliance are well documented and are core requirements of most HR organizations.

In the end, however, isn’t it really more about the vendor’s expertise working with HR than it is about the application features? HR personnel may inherently know what they need in a help desk / case management system, but they cannot necessarily correlate their business needs with the features of a pre-packaged help desk solution. That task is left to the system’s implementation team (aka the vendor).

For instance, HR needs the ability to tag particularly sensitive cases as confidential, viewable and accessible strictly to the case owner.  But most IT-modified systems don’t deal with the concept of confidentiality. What is confidential about a PC error or someone’s telephone not working – common tickets in an IT help desk system.  Can the vendor (and product) handle that requirement appropriately?

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Make Sure You Know Who You’re Hiring

The pool of job candidates is vast and diverse, yet head hunters and hiring managers oftentimes struggle to find the “right” people to fill key positions because they lack soft, or interpersonal skills. And unfortunately for those prospects who don’t necessarily fit into the company culture, their job satisfaction is short-lived once the imbalance becomes obvious. He or she could end up obviously unhappy, leaving managers to fill the positions yet again.

So, how do you go about selecting the right candidates? First, take a look at this list of administrative steps you need to take prior to the interview.  Then, when you’re face-to-face with candidates, follow these tips for conducting an effective interview that will help you determine who is (and isn’t) a good fit for the organization.

1. Behavioral interview with a twist
Dig deep into the minds of your prospects. Forbes recommends focusing on the details of each scenario presented to get the candidate “off script.” You have to ask questions for which canned responses won’t cut it.

For example, if you ask a management prospect to describe a time when they helped resolve a conflict between subordinates that was stifling production or efficiency, don’t settle for the canned response involving mediation or anything similar. Instead, inquire about how he or she evaluated individual personalities and past performance of those involved to help determine which approach was best to eradicate the issue.

If the interviewee struggles, it doesn’t mean they weren’t prepared since most have memorized the generic responses for “Tell me about a time when…” and “How would you handle…” questions. You’re just forcing them to think outside the box, which is paramount if you want to get a better understanding of how they respond under pressure or in unique situations. Although the candidate might be perfect on paper, you need to be sure his or her problem-solving skills and overall personality align with your expectations.

2. From where does the candidate draw inspiration?
The catchphrase, “birds of a feather flock together,” is applicable here. By asking job prospects where they look for inspiration, you can learn a lot about behavioral patterns, notes Entrepreneur. Work ethic is also part of the equation; individuals who are inspired by the hard work of others tend to strive for greatness. Plus, they’re more likely to wake up each morning motivated to tackle what lies ahead and work toward overcoming new challenges. Read More

Increase the Influence of Your HR Data to Win Friends and Influence People

One of the key imperatives from the C-suite for HR this year, according to the CEB’s Leadership Council Research, is to increase the influence of HR data in the enterprise organization.

In fact, developing and applying measurement strategies that “ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and business alignment” is among the 10 best practices of “high-impact HR organizations,” according to research from Bersin by Deloitte.

Yet only 8 percent of senior HR leaders “believe they are getting returns on their talent analytics investments, and only 15 percent of business leaders have changed a decision in the past year as a result of data from HR,” according to the CEB report.

It’s a sad irony, considering the mountain of people data at HR’s fingertips.

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Automated HR Case Management: Helping Move HR From an Administrative Services Provider to a Service Organization

Over the last decade, HR has gradually evolved from being a provider of administrative services into a service organization. HR today provides greater value for the business and delivers a breadth of automated people functions. As a result, HR technology, HR data systems, and HR resources are all now tasked with delivering valuable services for the entire enterprise organization.

HR no longer merely provides benefits administration. HR today is tasked with helping drive strategy, burnish the company brand, influence retention and recruiting, identify workplace trends, and more. For example, research from The Hackett Group, a global strategic business advisory and operations improvement consulting firm, found in 2013 that HR leaders were focusing on strategies for “process improvement, including cost reduction and standardization of processes, data, technology, and organizational culture; improving the effectiveness of talent management; obtaining more value from data to enable better decisions; and expanding the use of technology.”

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HR Technology: Giving HR Better Data, Not Just More Data

Deloitte’s recent report, “Global Human Capital Trends 2015,” is a wake-up call for HR leaders who are paying attention. For starters, the report ranks learning and development as the third most important talent management challenge facing business this year (the most important challenge was culture and engagement, followed by leadership).

But while three times more companies rated learning and development as very important this year compared with 2014, only 40 percent of respondents rated their organizations as “ready” or “very ready” in learning and development in 2015. That compares with 75 percent in 2014.

What that means is that while we keep hearing about how rapidly business is changing and how HR is transforming, HR continues to fall further behind. HR leaders need to take stock and decide what role they’ll play and how they’ll deal with the changes.

One part of the problem is that HR is being inundated with data, and the C-suite is asking HR to step up and play a more strategic role. But often those skills are not necessarily in HR’s wheelhouse. More to the point, more data is rarely the answer.

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Big Data Analysis for the Rest of Us

Ok, we have all heard about Big Data. But we leave the techie stuff up to our highly skilled IT folks, in order to tame those massive volumes of information so we neophytes can make sense of it all. Enough has been written about the value of Big Data, so we won’t repeat the obvious here. The cold hard fact is that Big Data, when fully understood and properly analyzed, is a game changer for many HR organizations.

That’s just great when you have a fully staffed IT department waiting by the phone for you to call with a new analytics project request. Oh, they are busy right now? And maybe for the next few weeks or months? Sound familiar? Unfortunately, those of us that crave that big data analytics value proposition just didn’t graduate from college with a computer science degree. Humanities, psychology, business, accounting, maybe. I don’t know about you, but my form and analysis professor (music major here) never mentioned Big Data. Not once. Sonata Rondo form structure, yes. Big Data, no.

To be clear, serious analysis like that discussed in LBi’s recent whitepaper “The Power of HR Analytics in the Quantified Organization”, requires careful planning and execution. In order to answer tough questions such as “What drives high-performance sales teams?” “Who will be our best leaders?” “How can we change behavior to improve customer retention?”, we need IT to be all-in with HR. Big Data analytics in HR must encompass more and more non-HR data sets such as sales and supply chain data. Additionally, as the whitepaper suggests, by embedding these services within business process applications, real-time analytics with current data can readily accelerate management and executive decisions, thereby truly creating a competitive edge.

However, we may just occasionally be forced on our own to jump into the Big Data pile heap and figure it all out. It can be done. Trust me.

The answer lies in Microsoft Excel’s glorious Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts. Just one slightly techie skill. Not too much to ask.

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Without a Goal and a Plan, Big Data and Powerful Technology Will Only Move HR So Far

What does the datafication of HR mean to you? What about for your organization? How do you think the role of HR technology has changed to meet the demands of the quantified organization? Which trends in HR technology do you think will have the next most immediate impact on HR practitioners, their organizations, and their employees?

How the datafication of HR fits into the quantified organization is the focus of a new paper from LBi Software in which several observers of the HCM space weigh in on this timely topic. In a nutshell, here are my thoughts on the subject, drawn from the paper’s conclusion:

  1. The first important thing for HR to have when it comes to using big data is a goal. Yet having a goal for big data — having a project, a hypothesis, a strategic business pain you want to understand more clearly — is probably the most overlooked element when an organization of any size sets out to develop its people data through new technology.
  2. The second important thing HR needs if it wants to fully leverage big data is the necessary tools to analyze the data from throughout the organization — not just from HR’s people data.

Without those two linchpins, the power of HR technology and its trends for the future will fall short of expectations.

LBi sought insight into what HR leaders ought to be thinking about when it comes to using more-powerful tools for gathering and analyzing data; how HR technology has evolved as part of the growing demand for people data to help drive business decisions; and what HR technology trends will have the most immediate impact in the datafied organization.

We reached out to five engaging and diverse industry thought leaders:

Top HR Influencers and Bloggers (2015 Edition)

The following is a purely subjective list of the top HCM and HR leaders and bloggers to follow on Twitter. We’ve found that they all have a true passion for Human Resources. Our list stops at 185, but there are really many more. The names can also be found on List.ly. It’s in no particular order, other than alphabetically by first name. We apologize if we left anyone off. Please add any HR influencers in the comments and we will add them to the list.

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Encouraging Employees AND Employers to Use HR Self-Service Tools

self-service

Recently, two new clients opted to implement LBi HR Help Desk without, at least initially, the Employee Self-Service Portal feature. Though the great majority of clients do deploy the Self-Service Portal, there are still a number of clients that choose to continue with phone and email case requests.

LBi HR Help Desk does provide features that help automate call-ins and email initiated tickets. For instance, HR Help Desk supports Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). With IVR/CTI technology, calls into HR can automatically be routed to the appropriate agent, and instantly open the employee HR Help Desk Masterfile screen ready to verify and engage the caller. More advanced telephony integration can be implemented where employees can generate cases via the touchtone system, similar to phone-based banking, though this option is less common.

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Submitting New Hire Candidates to Tests

Many companies subject potential new hires to various levels of testing to gauge overall skills and personality traits. Sometimes the tests are required to confirm specific required skills, such as expertise in a particular programming language or general typing skills. Other tests analyze fundamentals such as math and writing proficiency. Some employers actually subject candidates to SAT/ACT high school style tests. I am very good at math, but I haven’t brushed up on my trig recently. I better engage my high school kid to help prep me!

It is certainly reasonable for hiring firms to validate the skills detailed on candidate resumes and in interviews. After all, many people do lie or at least embellish their experience and training. Making a wrong hire can be very costly to any organization, and ultimately places a black mark on the terminated employee.

But can employers go too far? And what about those character tests, sometimes known as a predictive index? These tests attempt to identify the prospective employee’s personality traits (i.e., is he a Type A personality), and match them to the preferred traits of the open position. Typically developed by psychologists (but not always), the results of these tests can and do make or break the candidates chances at landing the job, sometimes regardless of the candidates actual skills and record of achievement in previous employers.

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Putting "HR Help" Back in the HR Help Desk

HR Hep

The expectations of HR continue to grow — to be more of a strategic player in the organization as well as to provide increasingly user-friendly services to employees. HR could use a little HR help from some friends.

Among those friends is an automated HR case management system, built specifically for HR departments to improve HR service delivery and provide HR self-service. This kind of solution can be just the kind of HR help that HR needs today.

First, however, you want to make sure your HR case management solution is designed specifically for HR departments. A system built for IT’s needs and repurposed for HR will fall short of the mark in several ways. You can read more about why that is in our blog post “HR Delivery Excellence Demands HR-dedicated Case Management: True Temper Tools Would Agree” and dig even deeper into the topic in our white paper “Case Management: The Backbone of Excellence in HR Service Delivery.”

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Manage Talent Better with an HR Help Desk

A centralized and automated HR case management system can be a huge asset in managing talent better for companies of any size — even overcoming the shortcomings of many larger and more comprehensive HR technology, information, and talent management systems.

Consider, for example, how an HR help desk can solve the challenge of gathering and maintaining critical employee information in a single location rather than having it spread across disparate databases and in paper files. In fact, there being a central, secure repository of data and records — without replacing current and separate systems — is one of the significant advantages of an HR case management system.

When an HR help desk or case management system is incorporated into a comprehensive talent management strategy, any organization can take advantage of full life-cycle support for employees, ultimately contributing to measurable performance gains. The best HR case management systems, like LBi HR HelpDesk, are designed to work seamlessly with a company’s HRIS software as well as their leading talent management applications.

Unified HR case management overcomes the potentially costly and time-consuming challenge of having critical employee information spread across disjointed databases and traditional paper files. Read More

Great Employee Self-Service Portals: Now More Than Ever

employee self-service portal

 

The importance of efficient, accessible employee self-service portals and HR self-service systems continues to grow — especially with the continuing influence of several key trends in workplace behavior and expectations, as well as in personal lifestyles.

Among the most significant of those trends driving the demand for more sophisticated employee self-service applications are:

  • Greater need for flexible work hours
  • Growing acceptance of remote working options
  • Increased use of SaaS-based applications and programs, as well as other types of cloud-based HR solutions
  • The boom in tablet- and smartphone-based platforms for workplace systems
  • The continuing tsunami of “mobile everything, everywhere” communication

Flexible working hours
The continued expansion of businesses across time zones and into international markets is also driving a greater need for flexible working options in every area of the organization. In response, HR technology needs to play a major role in keeping remote employees engaged. A compelling employee self-service portal empowers employees, boosts engagement, and saves HR immense amounts of time. Read More

Aloha! Leverage the Power of an HR Wiki

By | Knowledge Bases | Leave a comment

Sometimes the derivation of a word describes it perfectly. Wiki is one of those words. It’s from “wikiwiki,” the Hawaiian word for “quick.” And if a human resources wiki does anything at all, it makes quick work of updating and distributing relevant knowledge across the entire scope of HR topics, vastly improving HR self-service.

Yet many people in HR don’t fully understand wikis and wiki knowledge bases, or the power of wikis to save time (for HR and employees), reduce administrative headaches and oversights, and heighten employee engagement. How? By ensuring that people can get the most current information they need when they need it — and know the information is accurate.

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How to Green Up Your Workspace

Have you ever noticed that you feel different when surrounded by nature or when there are plants nearby? New research conducted by the University of Exeter shows that employees are happier and up to 15 percent more productive in work environments with plants than in environments without any greenery.

Green Is Good for Productivity

Academics from the University of Exeter, the University of Queensland, Australia, and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands carried out a long-term experiment comparing employees in two large commercial offices in the UK and the Netherlands. They monitored one office with plants and one without plants and measured employees’ perceptions of air quality, workplace satisfaction, concentration and productivity levels. The results show significant increases in all three areas of employee perception in the work environment with plants and a 15 percent increase in productivity. Researchers believe that the plants help employees to be more physically, cognitively and emotionally involved in their work.

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How Cloud and Other Technology Trends Are Transforming HR

Marc Solow, Deloitte Consulting LLP’s HR Shared Services Practices Leader, was cited in a recent blog post that really hit home for us. In a nutshell, Solow identified several HR trends occurring as a result of changes in technology. We agree with Solow’s insight and think the benefits of cloud-based automated HR software solutions — including HR case management — provide examples of what he’s talking about.

Five of the trends Solow identified are:

  1. Applying differentiated HR service delivery within organizations
  2. Showing a preference for cloud-based solutions for HR tools
  3. Transforming HR processes with social and mobile technologies
  4. Leveraging specialized outsourcing to drive better outcomes
  5. Consolidating processes of transactions to move value up the chain

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HR Self-Service: Why It Matters for Managers, Too

By | HR Effectiveness | Leave a comment

Usually when you hear the phrase “HR self-service,” it’s in the context of how its features can benefit employees and HR. It’s true that organizations of almost any size that have a robust, user-friendly, and meaningful employee self-service application also have higher employee engagement and more-efficient and data-rich HR departments compared with their counterparts that lack HR self-service solutions.

But there’s anther entire segment of the workforce that can also benefit hugely from HR self-service: managers and supervisors. Workplace trends suggest that HR leaders would be well served to consider ways to leverage HR self-service to support managers and supervisors. They’re the people whom research increasingly shows play a crucial role in retaining top employees and helping HR deliver its mission.

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The Importance of ROI When Evaluating Ancillary Business Systems


There is a general category of software based business systems that is considered mission critical to most organizations. Very few companies can operate without a general ledger package, a payroll system (or service), HRIS system, as well as industry specific systems for time and billing, manufacturing, distribution, etc. Final selection of these applications (often through an RFP process) is generally based on a combination of factors such as required functionality, ease of use, integration with other internal systems, and cost. Ultimately, regardless of whether these systems can actually save time and/or money, the business needs them and choices are made.

Where ROI (Return on Investment) analysis starts to become a greater factor in product selection is when internal business units (such as HR) are seeking out ancillary systems, sometimes referred to as “bolt-on” solutions. Examples are Data Warehouses, HR Recruiting systems, Performance Review systems, Case/ticket Management, etc. Products in this category may not be viewed as mission critical to the entire organization, but rather are considered more business critical — important primarily to the specific business group seeking the solution. In other words, the company would not shut down without them, although business operations could likely be greatly improved with them.

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The Power of an HR Call Center for Companies of Any Size

Contrary to common wisdom, the benefits of an HR call center are not limited to enterprise-level organizations. The value of being able to help employees easily access HR information and get answers to their questions can also benefit smaller businesses by reducing stress on HR administrators and yielding crucial call-tracking data.

For starters, an HR call center is a valuable HR resource that frees administrators to focus on more demanding tasks. As an HR data system, a call center can provide meaningful information such as the frequency of employee calls regarding specific HR topics and the number of calls needed to resolve cases.

With this kind of HR data, HR leaders in organizations of any size get greater insight into how policies and benefits are being communicated. You can determine where messages and communication to employees need to be improved, and where call center processes could use some tweaking.

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Nine Great (and Free) Resources for Human Resources

If you’re like most HR leaders, you keep a lot of plates spinning. Your act includes everything from scouring call-tracking data in your case management system (searching for ways to improve employee self-service) to staying abreast of the most recent topics in human resources news and workplace trends (seeking efficiencies, cost savings, and increased productivity).

You probably also welcome all of the HR resources you can get as easily and quickly as possible — especially the knowledgeable advice of peers — to help keep those plates spinning.

Maybe you’d like to gain some insight into a particularly sensitive matter you’re dealing with today. An online community could help with that. Maybe you simply want to be in the know on the latest workplace trends or what’s new in HR tools. Blogs and professional organization websites can help there.

We’ve asked our team to offer their thoughts on some great — and free — HR resources. In no particular order, here’s what they recommend:

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Managing Human Resources Service Level Agreements (SLA)

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

With the advent of productive office automation systems in HR, management now has the tools to create, track, and effectively adhere to standards of service delivered to their employees.  Modern HR systems for time and attendance automation, case management, talent management, and more all provide the ability to set unambiguous SLAs and analyze actual HR performance results.

So what is the best process for defining specific SLA standards for specific tasks and functions?  Some tasks, such as handling FMLA requests or payroll errors, are likely already defined by the government or your current company policies.  But since newer, more comprehensive computer systems provide the ability to be much more granular in task management automation, service levels for many other discrete tasks may now have to be developed and agreed to.

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Clearing up the Cloudiness

By | Data Security | Leave a comment

The benefits of the cloud for HR technology are unassailable. It makes the adoption of robust, complex programs and systems affordable and scalable. Unlike legacy systems that run on your organization’s own servers, cloud-based solutions don’t require you to buy any hardware; all system maintenance, updates, and support are part of the package, and they’re usually paid for on a subscription or fee-for-use basis. Cloud-based solutions are also often designed with layers of features and complexity built in — behind the curtain, so to speak — so you can change your configuration and add more users with the flip of a switch.

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3 Design Tips to Increase Office Productivity

There are some office configurations that are simply more conducive to productivity than others. A 2013 survey of 42,000 office workers by the University of Sydney found that open-plan spaces — those that have employees seated in large spaces without walls separating them — lower office productivity and morale. Researchers concluded the lack of privacy, personal space and perpetual noise were the biggest factors in lowering productivity.

These results contradicted the industry-accepted idea of open-plan spaces benefiting work environments. They also showed that the layout of your office can make all the difference between a distracted staff and one that is content and comfortable, and thus productive. Here are three additional ideas to help create an environment that boosts morale and subsequently, productivity. Read More

HR Tech 2014 Recap: HR HelpDesk Rated “E” for Everyone

By | HR Technology | Leave a comment

Guests at our HR Tech booth had fun playing Plinko for a guaranteed prize (vibration speakers, ear buds, USBs, water bottles…) and a chance at four Chromebooks and four Kindles.

The hottest prize at the booth was the vibration speaker — a cool gadget that magnifies the sound of your smartphone via vibration (no bluetooth); we had a lot of fun giving those demonstrations.

Our booth theme was HR HelpDesk Rated “E” for Everyone – HR HelpDesk, our innovative Case Management software, comes in four versions for organizations of varying sizes.

The E also stands for:

  • Employee Engagement
  • Efficient Case Management
  • Easy Sign up – no credit card required for free trials
  • Encompassing Pricing
  • And any other “E” word our marketing people could come up with.

We also generated some buzz on twitter at #EforEveryone.

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The ROI of HR Case Management

Implementing automated HR Case Management/HR Help Desk can save you money. This post will show you how to calculate that savings.

If you have a traditional manual HR call center with no automation you already have efficiencies in handling the incoming queries compared with a traditional HR staffing system. But you still face the challenges of providing accurate and consistent information, as well as the problem of managing the call center and staffing it with HR professionals. The bottom line is that many of the challenges inherent in a manual process tend to remain, while the biggest potential for reducing costs through an automated system are not leveraged.

Upgrading your call center with an automated HR help desk will help you address these problems and lower operating costs.

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Secure HR Case Management

By | Compliance | Leave a comment
Secure HR Case Management

The last thing you need is for employees to distrust HR. It can happen when you don’t have a system in place to route confidential cases, such as harassment or manager dispute cases, to strictly authorized personnel. It can also happen when you use a manual system that fails to ensure that you’re compliant with HIPAA, PHI, PII, and safe harbor regulations. There can be fines of up to $250,000 for violations (and imprisonment of up to 10 years for knowingly abusing or misusing an individual’s health information). Read More

The Rise of HR Knowledge Bases

We live in the self-service era — self-serve check-out lines, pay at the pump, YouTube do it yourself videos… I just fixed my mountain bike by watching a YouTube video on how to adjust the disc brakes. It is just faster to do it ourselves. I didn’t have to drop my bike off at the shop and waste any time. Also, there is a bit of a self-esteem lift involved when you fix it yourself. Recently I fixed my garage door opener by ordering a $10 part and watching a YouTube video. (Although when I started it I did not realize the video was “1 of 5” and it would take me 8 hours to do it. But time management will be saved for another blog post.) The key was even though I wasted a tremendous amount of time, I felt good that I had fixed the door by myself.

An HR Knowledge Base can contain all types of employee information — benefits guide, code of conduct, policy information, PC FAQs… It is more than just an online Employee Handbook. The key to a knowledge base is the information that allows the employee to easily find answers to their questions. So properly indexing the knowledge base is essential. The knowledge base should have search engines that allow an individual to type in a question. It is much more than an FAQ.

A good knowledge base and supporting tools can empower your employees to find the answers to their questions themselves. This both saves HR time and engages your workforce.

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The Power of Combining HR Case Management with Self-service Technology

SMB Employee Self Service

The combination of case management and self-service technology gives employees the power to answer their own questions and take care of many of their own HR and benefits tasks at a time of their choosing and from their own desks — or even from home. Employees are increasingly expecting their online interactions at work to be as easy and personalized as their online consumer experiences. Online workplace applications — including HR programs — are now considered table stakes for businesses of all sizes to reach and support their employees.

This means that by implementing these solutions, the company is also giving time and resources back to HR. Fewer HR hours need to be allocated to answering employee questions and managing routine paperwork. And that means more time and resources to focus on strategic business tasks and planning.

Studies show that the right self-service system, like that in LBi HR HelpDesk Pro and ProPlus, can accurately address and resolve 80 percent of all employee inquiries. This is particularly significant for SMB organizations that are still operating with a traditional HR department and a manual case management system or resolution process.

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Are Employment-At-Will Laws Really Good for the Employer or Employee?

Wikipedia describes at-will employment laws as follows:

“At-will employment is a term used in U.S. labor law for contractual relationships in which an employee can be dismissed by an employer for any reason (that is, without having to establish “just cause” for termination), and without warning…[and] an employee may be similarly entitled to leave his or her job without reason or warning.”

Like many well-meaning HR policies, at-will laws in practice may be a double edged sword.  On the surface at-will regulations appear to be beneficial for the employer and employee, though with some negative implications.

An employee can quit with no advanced notice, freeing the departing worker to “jump ship” Friday afternoon ready for the next new career move the following Monday without skipping a beat professionally. After all, it is the employer’s prerogative to immediately dismiss the resigning employee whether or not they offered the traditional two week notice. If this were to occur, the employee could potentially have a costly time gap between the old and new job. So why provide any notice at all?

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Why SMBs Are Using HR HelpDesk

SMBs and HR HelpDesk

HR departments in small to medium sized organizations share the same employee issues that occur in large enterprises; the only difference being the volume of problems HR is confronted with.  Labor disputes, morale problems, productivity issues, compensation inequality and more, are the bane of HR departments both large and small.

As one well known technology company proudly articulates, “There’s an app for that”.  And there is.  But until now case management software solutions explicitly developed to address the privacy and confidentiality requirements of HR have been out of reach for the SMB market due to the generally higher cost factor. Lower cost IT help desk and sales/support focused CRM systems, even Excel spreadsheets and simple email public folders, have long been considered “good enough” for smaller HR departments, and for some companies that is certainly true.

However, what happens when that emailed ticket declaring an employee’s sexual harassment accusation is inadvertently (or intentionally) BCC’d or forwarded to unauthorized eyes? This breach of confidentiality can be extremely costly for any sized organization.

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Is the 360 Degree Employee Review Method a Good Idea?

Are 360 degree employee reviews particularly more or less fair to the employee? Let’s start with defining the 360 degree review process. 360 degree employee performance reviews encompass comments from the employee’s managers and peers, customer feedback, HR statistics such as patterns of absences and late/tardy occurrences, as well as actual performance measures.

Additionally, some companies monitor their employee’s social media sites, looking for more clues into their overall impact on the organization. Some reasonable weight is assigned to each of these processes in order to assess the total picture of the employee’s value and contribution to the business.

Seems fair and complete, right? Well they certainly can be, as long as the proper weight is applied to each component of the review, and subjectivity is minimized. For instance, an employee may have achieved 100% of his MBO’s, but for various reasons is not viewed favorably by his/her peers. Does that really matter in the long run? Another employee might have successfully completed all of his projects on time and within budget, but management was quietly expecting more cost cutting measures, though not openly mandated. Is that fair?

Traditional employee reviews focus primarily on performance compared directly to assigned objectives, with additional consideration given to other mitigating factors such as general employee attitude, leadership qualities, attendance, etc. But 360 degree employee reviews take a truly holistic approach and effectively become the “balanced scorecard” of employee reviews.

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Changing the Game for SMB HR: Case Management Your Way

SMB HR Case Management

We’re not here to say HR technology has ignored the small and midsize business market. If we did, we’d be cut to ribbons in a heartbeat. A Google search I just did for “HR technology for SMB” returned 29.7 million results. HR technology vendors have targeted the SMB user with cloud-based software to handle everything from recruiting and onboarding to performance management, time and attendance, career development and compensation.

Until now, however, no one has offered the SMB market a fully featured HR case management solution the way SMB companies really want to buy software — which means going beyond offering Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). That’s become table stakes.

Doing more for SMB buyers starts with offering free trials, just as SMB users expect from all kinds of other SaaS products. So LBi is offering LBi HR HelpDesk to the SMB market with free trials — including a free-forever trial for companies with fewer than 100 employees on the system.

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Why Do HR Technology Vendors Continue to Overlook the SMB Market?

Life is full of sad realities. One is that the SMB market has been vastly underserved by the HR technology industry. There’s one very simple reason: Despite the glut of cloud-based HR software, HR technology vendors have until now largely failed to sell products the way small and midsize businesses want to buy them. (For the record, we’re talking about companies with 2,000 or fewer employees.)

For starters, the HR technology industry has traditionally failed to let the SMB user “try it before you buy it.” They certainly haven’t wooed the SMB buyer with free trials like they offer to the enterprise customer. We concede that until now, we at LBi Software have been as guilty of this as our competitors, especially when it comes to our flagship solution, the HR case manager and call-tracking workflow system, LBi HR HelpDesk.

That’s a shame. HR leaders in the SMB market until now have never been given the opportunity to determine, without pressure or hassle, whether an HR technology solution could really benefit them (assuming, of course, other motivating factors also fall into place — factors like pricing and having an easy purchasing process).

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Finally, an HR Case Management Model Designed Uniquely for the SMB Market

Call us crazy, but we think HR buyers in the SMB (small and midsize business) market have been overlooked for too long. We believe HR technology vendors — including LBi — have failed to sell products the way SMB users want to buy them.

We think we’ve set things right.

LBi Software is proud to offer the SMB buyer HR HelpDesk, a fully featured yet affordable HR case management and call-tracking workflow solution. Of course, the powerful and robust enterprise edition of LBi HR HelpDesk is a highly configurable system that offers complete integration with HR, ERP, and email systems; advanced document management; options for on-premise hosting and licensing, or hosting on a dedicated server (for maximum security); single-sign on; corporate branding, and more.

But now we’re giving HR leaders in organizations with up to 2,000 employees the opportunity to launch a cloud-based version of LBi HR HelpDesk as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and start using it right away. And we’re doing that in a way that’s hassle-free — consumer-friendly access with no obligation to buy and a simple, one-step purchasing process.

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LBi Software Expanded Staff and Headquarters!

LBi Software is pleased to announce that it has completed an expansion of its headquarters to over 10,000 square feet at 7600 Jericho Turnpike in Woodbury, NY. LBI Software also recently reached the 50 employee mark. In the last 18 months LBi has grown by over 30%!  This expansion is to support the upcoming new offering of our flagship solution LBi HR HelpDesk.

The office expansion included new offices, new workstations to support 3 monitors per developer, meeting rooms, video games and a Ping Pong table.

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HR Help Desk Analytics: A Webinar Showing Real Use of Big Data and KPIs

HR HelpDesk Manager Dashboard

Discover how Human Resources Help Desk analytics can transform your organization. On June 3rd LBi Software will host a webinar demonstrating the power of HR Help Desk Analytics and Big Data.

The benefits of implementing an HR Help Desk and Employee Self Service Knowledge Base solution are many, including fewer calls into HR, consistent adherence to corporate business policies, greater employee satisfaction, and more.

However, a robust, well-designed and mature solution can provide even greater value through powerful analytics.

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Do You Really Need to Issue an RFP?

Before starting down the path of developing an RFP, it’s crucial to understand the ultimate goal of the journey. Not all RFPs are released with the objective of finding the best and most robust HR case management solution for a company’s needs. Other business goals for an RFP include:

  • Finding the lowest-cost solution to meet the most nominal requirements
  • Surveying the marketplace and gathering information for a future purchase
  • Collecting ideas and information for building a system in-house

If the above is your reason for considering the RFP process, then please don’t.

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Healthier Employees Make for a Wealthier Bottom Line

A 2001 Gallup poll found that Americans who are obese or have chronic health problems cost their employers an estimated $153 billion per year in lost productivity. As the prevalence of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and other chronic health conditions continued to rise from 1999 to 2010 (and beyond), employers are looking for ways to keep their employees physically fit. The best employee wellness initiatives are those that motivate without harming morale.

Promoting Healthy Body Weight

Obese and overweight individuals are more likely to take sick days, require more doctor visits and experience difficulty performing efficiently at work, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An effective strategy to encourage weight management is to have a friendly interoffice competition. For example, departments might compete against one another to see which can log the most exercise minutes, steps walked per day or pounds lost (following a group weigh-in, so as not to put pressure on an individual). Tying performance to monthly rewards such as an office party, financial benefit, or flex time is a great way to increase motivation.

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Is Work-Life Balance a Myth?

Work-Life Balance

Is work-life balance a myth? No, it just has different meaning and implications for different cultures. In the United States there is a trend towards encouraging employees to find a healthy medium between work hours and personal time. There is a widely held belief here that a happy employee is a productive employee. In some industries, employees are required to take all of their allotted paid time off. Others sometimes discourage long vacations greater than one week at a time. But today we are recognized as the most productive nation on Earth, though that belief is rapidly changing.

What about other countries and cultures? Certainly workers in China, South Korea, Japan and India, as well as other countries, are considered very productive. However, in those cultures generally work comes first, and sometimes to the exclusion of family and personal life. Disconcerting stories such as those coming from the Chinese factory Foxconn, are all too common. At Foxconn, employees often work seven days a week, eat in common cafeterias, and live in crowded dorms, though they rarely complain. On the contrary, many employees there are proud to work hard and strive for a solid middle class existence, which otherwise might be unattainable.

In these cultures, children are taught from an early age that hard work and personal achievement is the root of success and happiness. Anything less is considered shaming to the family. In school, “A” is the new “B”. Nothing less than “A+” is acceptable. Just look at the winners in the annual Intel Science and Siemens Competitions. They are consistently represented by a disproportionately large number of foreign born or first generation American students, often from Asian and Indian countries. It is truly hard to argue with success.

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Ensure Data Security and Strengthen Policies with HR Case Management

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

We live and conduct business in an increasingly litigious society. We all know that. At the same time, businesses are increasingly in the crosshairs of various state and federal agencies responsible for enforcing everything from fair hiring practices to safety in the workplace.

An HR help desk is the antithesis of the old way of responding to government audits and legal action. Then, managers and administrators had to almost manually piece together disconnected sources and chains of communication related to a grievance – emails, phone messages, printed forms and other sources.

An automated HR help desk, by comparison, offers an audit trail for every case, including all of its related documents and communications. A quality system also has the level of security to ensure privacy and confidentiality in the HR environment.

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Last Year’s Business Blunders and How to Learn From Them This Year

Whether 2013 was your most successful year yet or one you would like to forget, it should be seen as a learning opportunity for 2014. As a small business owner and captain of your own ship, it’s natural to make mistakes, but with the right tools, you can easily avoid common pitfalls and blunders like sloppy record keeping and spending too much time on social media.

1. Filing Messy Last Minute Taxes

If your 2013 taxes are proving to be complicated and cumbersome because you left everything to the last minute, take a few steps to make tax time easier in 2014. Third party Payroll Services organize all of your payroll records throughout the year. Instead of slogging through a year’s worth of records and manually transferring numbers, just click a few times, and your payroll software will download the relevant numbers and forms to your tax software.

Combine a program like this with an organizational app like Shoeboxed, which allows you to easily file receipts and track expenses. This app ensures that you never miss a write-off, and it has the power to effectively lower your tax burden. With the right tools in place, filing taxes in April 2015 should be a breeze.

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Key Performance Indicators Enhance HR Help Desk Value

The benefits of implementing an HR Help Desk and Employee Self Service Knowledge Base solution are many, including fewer calls into HR, consistent adherence to corporate policies, greater employee satisfaction, and many more. However, a robust, well-designed and mature solution can provide even greater value through powerful analytics that use key performance indicators. Key performance indicators, or KPI’s, define factors HR needs to benchmark and monitor.

Traditional HR systems do not track patterns of employee morale issues, the impact of personnel disputes on overall performance, management style inconsistencies, and other, often subliminal, employee related problems that can negatively affect corporate productivity.

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Keeping Your Contingent Workforce Engaged

The percentage of employees that are contingent is quickly growing. Currently 18% of the total work force is contingent.  Some are predicting this to rise to 50% of the Fortune 500 workforce! HR software and HR software vendors must be prepared to support this growing contingent workforce. Furthermore, this contingent workforce needs to be just as engaged as traditional full-time employees. We need to get the most from our employees whether they are permanent or contingent.

Contingent workers are not permanent employees and they know it. Depending on their contract or agreement with the firm, continued employment is always in question, as is the ability to move to a higher, more permanent position.

A contingent workforce may provide many benefits to the organization, such as helping to fill temporarily needed positions during uncertain times of unpredictable growth. But once those workers are in place they need to be properly managed. It is critical to understand that the disposition of contract workers is much different than the attitudes of regular full-time employees. Are they loyal to the company? Can they be trusted with confidential information? Are they at least as productive as regular workers?

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HR Case Management Can Get Actionable Analytics from Big Data

Today’s business systems create mountains of data. HR systems are no exception. Nor is the HR organization immune from leadership’s growing demand to mine that data and transform it into analytics that can help drive business decisions.

In his May 2011 review of a weeklong conference, Impact 2011: Building the Borderless Workplace, Josh Bersin wrote, “I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the focus on HR measurement, metrics and analytics throughout the conference.”

In fact, developing and applying measurement strategies that “ensure efficiency, effectiveness and business alignment” is among the 10 best practices of “high-impact HR organizations,” according to research by Bersin & Associates (now Bersin by Deloitte). These HR organizations provide data that illustrates “clear connections between the efforts of both the HR function and individual people.”

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HR Case Management Can Boost Employee Engagement

The features of an automated HR Case Management System – from resolving cases faster and easier, to empowering self-service – can help create and heighten employee engagement.

For example, an HR case management system designed to serve HR keeps a record, instantly available, of every employee transaction. With just a couple of clicks, an HR team member has access to the entire history of a case. The employee doesn’t need to restart the process if he or she needs to follow up on a case.  It’s obviously more efficient for HR, and it’s also an effective tool for heightening employee engagement. It shows employees that the company cares enough to handle their concerns quickly and knowledgeably – it brings consumer-like service to the world of HR.

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4 Must-Have Apps for New International Travelers

By | Technology Tools | Leave a comment

You have finally scrimped and saved enough money to afford an adventurous international vacation. Maybe your destination is a big exotic city like Bangkok or Sydney, or a tightly-scheduled itinerary where you’ll visit a dozen countries in a dozen days.

Perhaps you’re headed to the jungle or desert in the middle of nowhere, which will still be worth it because it’s a place that’s far from home. Whatever the case, you have earned this trip so the only thing you need to do now is to start planning.

Getting there, of course, is half the fun. You can get a head start on your travel plans with a mobile device. If you don’t have one yet for this trip, you can find tablet deals with providers like T-Mobile. Tablets can give you easy access to useful travel-related apps before and after you arrive. Think of it as traveling with a computer and your own native guide in one resource.

TripIt

This app can help organize details about where you’re going and how you’re getting there, everything from confirmation numbers to what gate you’re flying out of. It also alerts you to possible changes, such as a delayed flight or a changed gate, and syncs the same data to different device screens so any traveling companions can have access to the same data. It’s available for free for iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry, or $49 a year for TripIt Pro that provides more planning assistance, including details of where your seat is on your next flight.

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For an HR Case Management Shopping List, Consider Five Features of a Full-platform HRIS

It’s true that an HR case management solution is only one piece of a comprehensive HRIS solution. HR case management lives under the big umbrella of software solutions that help streamline the whole spectrum of HR management system functions, from benefits administration, to time and attendance, to performance reviews and succession planning.

Yet all of the pieces within an HRIS share two overarching goals: to help HR professionals manage their workforce more efficiently and to empower employees. Just as with a full-platform HR management system (HRMS), you also want an HR case management solution that will increase HR productivity by automating administrative processes and supporting HR on a strategic level.

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Is Your HR Help Desk System Smart Enough? See if it Passes the Test.

Help Desk systems have become mainstream solutions in virtually every aspect of business operations, including Customer Support, Salesforce Automation, IT Support, HR Support, and more. Though there are many similarities in these applications, it is a keen understanding of the inherent differences that can make or break a successful deployment. Selecting a product that falls short of expectations in just one or two key areas can lead to time delays, as well as wasted (and potentially very costly) financial and personnel investment.

Never has this been truer than in selection and deployment of a new HR system, particularly HR Help Desk. For instance, a lack of privacy features in the help desk system can breach confidentiality agreements, potentially risking expensive and time consuming legal actions.

A well designed HR system, built explicitly for HR, will plug all of the security holes that may exist in some non-HR centric applications. We invite you to take this simple test below and score your current system against the best solutions, such as LBi HR Help Desk 5.0.

Give yourself 5 points for every question you can unequivocally answer “Yes”.

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BYOD: My Employee Resigned – And His Smartphone Is Full of Business Data

Recent research from British law firm EMW paints a distressing picture of employee data theft. EMW found that cloud computing makes it easier for employees to take enterprise data when they leave, and that court cases over theft of business information increased 56 percent from 2011 to 2012. Adopting “bring your own device”, or BYOD,  in your business can leave you vulnerable to employee data theft when staff move on. Accept this, then take steps to minimize your risk.

What’s at Stake if an Employee Walks

When an employee leaves, he carries with him knowledge of your products, services and workflow. Employee laptops and phones will have enterprise and client emails, strategic information, work documents and other data. Since employees may leave for a variety of reasons, every policy should take this into account. Employees who transfer to another office or take a medical leave may need to keep business information, while those who resign, are laid off, or are fired should not keep data.

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HR HelpDesk Can Burnish Your Employer Brand

The days are gone when a company could control its brand either as an employer or a market solution. Gone also are the days when nearly everything a potential candidate or buyer knew about a company came directly from its public affairs office, from stories the company urged its employees and existing clients to disseminate, or from articles that appeared in the business media.

That was before the days of the Internet and social media, before we had the myriad channels through which an organization’s image could be trumpeted – or soiled. “Brand ambassadors, or employee evangelists, are becoming an increasingly common way for brands to leverage their biggest asset – their workforce, of course – to reach new markets, generate buzz, and put a real face on the company,” journalist Eric Markowitz wrote in Inc. Magazine. “They can be tweeters, bloggers, Facebookers – or they could just be the people you send to corporate events.”

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Top HR Influencers to Follow on Twitter

The following is a purely subjective list of the top Human Resources Influencers and Bloggers to follow on Twitter. There are really so many – we wanted to keep the list at 100 but it stretched to 131. The list can also be found on Twitter and List.ly. It’s in no particular order, other than alphabetically by first name. We apologize if we left anyone off. Please add any influencers in the comments and we will add them to the list.

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What Is a Company’s Most Valuable Asset? Its Employees

valuable asset is employees

Recently I closed one of the biggest contracts of my career. The last key piece that sold it was “our employees”. During one of the sales meetings the prospect’s CFO said something profound – “after all, it is not so much about choosing Company A over Company B as it is with being comfortable with the people from Company A”. The CFO liked the team that presented the solution but he wanted to be assured that the team that will execute it was just as good. So I sent him the name and bio of everyone who would be assigned to the project. We then followed that up with an in-person presentation of all the team members. The next day we got the contract.

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How Your Employees Communicate with Each Other Does Matter

By | HR Efficiency | Leave a comment

Phone, email, text, instant message (IM), in person? Unfortunately, many younger workers have grown up in a world where face-to-face (or even phone) communications are not deemed necessary in order to interact effectively with others. The nuances of verbal communications have given way to graphical emoticons and cryptic acronyms. Why bother interpreting visual or audible cues when there is a Smiley face for that?

Have we forgotten about the importance of body language and vocal inflections? In the animal kingdom virtually all creatures converse, not with the written word, but rather by sight and sound. And they apparently are quite successful at it. If sophisticated communications within species through visual and audible means is the product of millions of years of evolution, what does that say about humans and texting? Is this really the next phase in our evolution… or not?

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Stay True to Your Mission Statement

Almost every organization has a formal, written Mission Statement. These statements have at least two primary purposes — to clearly state long-term corporate goals, and to generally set the guiding principles by which employees conduct themselves internally and with their customers.

Mission Statements are top-down mandates that every employee must follow in their daily professional lives. Often it is the responsibility of HR and middle management to monitor (formally or otherwise) their employees to ensure adherence to corporate policies, including those broad principles detailed in the Mission Statement. So how can “the mission” be efficiently monitored day to day, week to week, and beyond, particularly in larger organizations?

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Bullying in the Workplace

By | Compliance | Leave a comment

One of the top sports stories in the news lately has been the issue of player bullying in the NFL. Recently, a rookie player for the Miami Dolphins, a 312 lb., 6’5″ tackle, suddenly resigned due to accusations of bullying by another player, foregoing a high six figure salary.  Certainly not your typical target, how is it even possible that the allegations (including physical, verbal and mental abuse) could be true? Who in their right mind would bully a 6’5″ giant?  Except maybe another 6′ 300 lb. giant.

But that’s not the real story here.  Several of the accused player’s teammates and many other NFL players are defending the accused, primarily on the basis that this is a common and accepted practice in the league, particularly with rookie players.  Think of it as harmless “initiation” or “hazing”.  In the eyes of many within the NFL community, these alleged actions were simply a means of toughening up the victim, preparing him for the rigors of the sport.  And since the victim ultimately could not take the abuse and subsequently resigned from the team, the team and league are now at a better place – after all it’s about survival of the fittest.  For the NFL, this story is far from reaching its conclusion.

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Why Do the Hottest Things Lose Their Mojo So Quickly?

By | Strategic HR | Leave a comment

This past summer three of my favorite TV shows ended: Breaking Bad, Dexter, and Burn Notice. Each one was very successful yet only one remained on top until the very end. Why is that? Did the others lose their way or just ride out the series like a cash cow?

As far as the reasons behind the failures of Dexter and Burn Notice, they are a matter of personal opinion. Dexter clearly had jumped the shark and, given the series plot, it got less real with each additional microscope slide. As for Burn Notice, in my opinion, it tried to be like the competition and turned from a fun campy A-Team-like show to a lame spy thriller.

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HR Delivery Excellence Demands HR-dedicated Case Management: True Temper Tools Would Agree

“The right tool for the right job.”

That’s been the advertising slogan for True Temper tools since at least 1907, when the Cleveland-based company was called American Fork & Hoe. The catchphrase is just as true today as it was then, and not only when it comes to forks and hoes.

Without the right technology for the right job, it’s highly unlikely any mission will achieve its optimal outcome. Sure, the job might get done. But at what cost? What will be left out or left behind? How much better could the job have been done with the right tools – with the benefit of software and a system, for example, uniquely designed to accomplish that particular job?

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HR Tech 2013 Recap: The Puzzle of HR Technology Solved!

Guests at LBi Software’s HR Tech booth participated in a game to try to solve the puzzle of HR Technology:

Each player would add a piece to the puzzle and try to guess the message. The first correct puzzle guess won a Microsoft Surface and each correct guess after that was put in a drawing for a second Microsoft Surface. Participants would also win a prize for just playing: Kindles, iPod Nanos, ear buds, Amazon gift cards, 8GB flash drives and water bottles.
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Using HR HelpDesk for Talent Management Processes

One of the hottest HR Shared Services products today is talent management software. Designed to manage the entire lifecycle of employee tenure within an organization, these solutions have become one of the most high-demand systems for corporations large and small. However, as they impact virtually every department within HR, from recruiting to benefits to payroll, etc., the decision timeframe for selection of the best-fit solution can be considerably protracted as many users are directly involved in the selection process. Additionally, the most comprehensive systems can be quite expensive, frequently requiring a longer term budget appropriation process.

For many organizations, the short-term solution is to continue with their current painfully inefficient paper intensive processes until a new system can be procured and implemented. There is, however, a viable alternative – LBi HR HelpDesk. As we have discussed in previous articles, HR HelpDesk is a productive and often necessary add-on to even the finest talent management systems, since HR case/ticket management is not generally a component of talent management suites.

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Stack-Ranking Employees (aka rating on the Bell Curve system)

By | HR Effectiveness | Leave a comment

For many years, large companies such as Microsoft, GE and others have rated their workforce on a bell curve system, which dictates how employees in a review period are ranked within their given group. More importantly, it limits how many can be ranked above average, and requires a certain % to be graded below average. Even if the entire team and every individual outperforms their goals!

The image below provides an example of GE’s stack-rank policy:

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Closing the Gap in Talent Management Systems

  • Recruitment
  • Onboarding
  • Performance
  • Training and Development
  • Succession Planning
  • Offboarding

Yes, the very best Talent Management systems are designed to handle the complete lifecycle of your workforce. They connect and manage all of the stages of the employee’s career within the organization. Cradle to grave, as they say.

Or do they? Is there something missing here? Absolutely there is.

Let’s talk about that cradle to grave analogy. Mom and Dad plan to start a family – Recruitment. The big day comes and the bouncing baby is born – Onboarding. Teach the little one how to walk and talk – Performance. Potty training, manners, and formal education follow – Training and Development. College and career aspirations – Succession Planning. The little one finally leaves the nest – Offboarding.

That’s it, right? Wrong. What about all those endless hours of issues, problems, questions and general conversations that you have with Junior through the years? Why can’t I have the car keys? Can you raise my allowance? Can I go to Miami for Spring break with the gang? I am really mad at my brother!

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HR Help Desk vs. IT Help Desk

IT Help Desk solutions are feature rich and generally lower in cost than those developed specifically for HR; but consider the mission critical role of a help desk solution in HR, and the inherent risk of confidentiality breaches from less secure solutions, and the choice seems clear.

IT Help Desk systems generally don’t need to be concerned with employee privacy and information security. They are designed to handle the management of technical computer and telephony issues, software problems, etc. Routing of confidential cases (i.e., harassment or manager dispute cases) strictly to authorized personnel (and out of the eyes of others) is simply not a necessary function for IT. Read 7 Employer Actions that Can Increase Likelihood of a Lawsuit for insights on the importance of HR maintaining proper documentation while handling employee disputes.

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The Affordable Care Act and Your Employees – Communication is Critical

With all the hype created in the media for The Affordable Care Act, (aka Obamacare), it is critical for HR departments to communicate openly with their employees regarding any impact (whether positive or negative) on them financially or otherwise.

While some components of the law have already been enacted, many key provisions (and some of the most confusing) are set to begin in 2014.  Because the press has had a field day covering the political football known as Obamacare, misinformation is bound to be created, causing tremendous FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).  This fact has the potential to not only generate an unneeded distraction within the workforce at a minimum, but great anxiety and grave concern for their future at the other extreme.

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Are We a Disposable Society? Do We Replace HR Technology Too Quickly?

By | HR Efficiency | Leave a comment

This weekend my friend, an HR Department Head, asked me if he was being too hasty in replacing his legacy HCM system.  After all, his entire department had invested so much time and money into it: learning the nuances, customizations, interfaces…  So I asked him what was wrong with the current system.  His response was that it does not do everything they want and it is too costly to maintain (expensive upgrades and annual fees).  He predicted that the new software’s payback period was less than 3 years.

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Getting Contextual: Beyond Employee Engagement in HR Technology

The use of HR technology to heighten employee engagement is still evolving. In some respects – and despite so much that’s been written about it – applying the features of HR and HCM technology to boost employee engagement is still in its infancy. But in other regards, the trend is already starting to become passé.

The practice of tapping into existing legacy HCM systems to drive employee engagement will soon be outdated. Here’s how Brandon Hall Group and The Starr Conspiracy put it in their recent white paper, The Future of HCM: 7 Trends That Every HCM Provider Needs to Know: “There’s one certainty within this uncertainty. These legacy HCM systems will all eventually go away forever. HCM players have taken novel steps to hasten the progress of this slow death.”

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Webinar Recap: HR Technology vs. Real-world Challenges

It was no surprise to us that our webinar “Leveraging HR Technology to Meet Real-world Challenges” brought some great, real ideas to the table.

We brought in HR thought leader Robin Schooling to talk about these ideas because she’s been there. She’s had to bridge that disconnect between where an HR technology solution may end and where the real solution begins. With LBi Software President Richard Teed, we heard someone with decades of experience in the HR technology industry talk about the challenges of meeting the needs of HR pros. Lastly, the guidance and moderation of Laurie Ruettimann helped balance the two perspectives to give some powerful insights.

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Employees Want to Be More Like Consumers. Let Them.

As with every other aspect of human capital management today, success increasingly depends on engaging employees. And that means HR must give employees consumer-like online experiences in their work life as much as possible.

Why? Two overarching reasons:

  1. HR has gradually and increasingly taken a page from marketing’s playbook. Savvy HR leaders today know the value of actively soliciting feedback about – and keeping abreast of – employees’ needs, wants, preferences, and concerns; developing relevant and actionable data from that knowledge; and responding accordingly.
  2. Also like their colleagues in marketing, forward-thinking HR leaders are aware of – and responding to – the shifts in employee demographics, social networking, mobile computing and connectivity, and online consumerism. Just like consumers, employees want increasingly to be informed, connected, and empowered.

HR technology that supports this trend – while balancing it all with privacy and security – fosters a more engaged, more productive workforce. An HR case management system that features an engaging employee portal, an accessible user interface, and unconditional security offers one big step toward treating employees as consumers. The results: a more engaged and more productive workforce.

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Making HR Technology Real: A Webinar to Deal With Daily HR Life

Let’s face it. HR technology today is so powerful, so robust, and so omnipresent – not to mention so dressed out with bells, whistles, and data-generating gewgaws – that it’s easy to forget what HR’s most important role is every day: solving people problems.

We recently published an e-book, Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Applying HR Technology to Solve Real-world Problems, because we’re concerned about what we see as a gap between the promises of HR technology and the everyday reality that HR leaders face at ground zero.

HR professional, author, and speaker Robin Schooling was among those who contributed to Where the Rubber Meets the Road, and we’re excited that she’s continuing the conversation with us. Robin will join LBi President Richard Teed on July 24 for a one-hour webinar, “Leveraging HR Technology to Meet Real-world Challenges.”

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Data Security: HR Has a Strategic Role to Play

Myth: Data security is a highly technical and esoteric undertaking that is solely the responsibility of an enterprise organization’s IT department.

Fact: Data security is an increasingly significant concern and function of many stakeholders, including HR.

HR is both a huge generator and an enormous consumer of sensitive information about employees and the company.

The kinds of information HR generates and stores have expanded rapidly in the last decade or two. So have the storage capabilities and amount of data HR is responsible for creating and archiving. It wasn’t so long ago that most of the communication between HR and employees or leadership was spoken, handwritten, or typed onto paper. In addition, it was either never retained or was saved only until the schedule called for it to be shredded or tossed out to make more room in the filing cabinets and storage rooms for newer documents.

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